SD Unified to raise class size, sell more property

With personnel cuts off the table for the first time since 2008, San Diego Unified School District financial planners have offered the first details of the unusual “attrition-based budget” that was ordered by the board of education last month.

Teachers will be spared the anxiety of pink slips this year, and will finally receive some of the raises that were negotiated three years ago.

However, class sizes — once protected as a top priority by the board — will go up from 24 to 27 students in kindergarten through third-grade at most schools. At the district’s lowest -performing campuses, class size will jump from 20 to 24 students, under a preliminary budget plan released this week.

San Diego Unified’s roughly 200 schools will feel the pinch of budget cuts with slightly fewer nurses available to treat students. Funding for basic supplies and hourly workers will drop to from $9.6 million to $5.9 million, enough to fund 61 percent of the actual need.

What’s more, four surplus properties have been flagged for potential sale this year to generate up to $90.3 million in what one trustee has called a continued and “historically irresponsible liquidation of assets.”

The district expects to receive up to $28.2 million in additional funding from the state next year thanks to tax proceeds from Gov. Jerry Brown’s Proposition 30, which voters passed in November. But officials said that’s not enough to stabilize a school system that has been hurt by years of underfunding from the state.

The school board directed the administration of California’s second-largest district to balance the budget by freezing virtually all jobs left vacant throughout attrition. Last month, trustees rejected a more traditional budget-balancing plan that would have laid off some 1,000 teachers. Because the deadline to issue pink slips is March 15, there is no going back on the attrition-based fiscal road map since preparation for layoffs takes months.

“On January 22, (the school board) said no layoffs, figure it out,” said Stan Dobbs, San Diego Unified’s CFO. “We found a way to figure it out... We’ve got to stick to it.”

Nearly $17 million of the additional state money has been committed to paying for overdue teacher pay raises and reducing some furlough days under a labor agreement the district reached with the teachers union last summer. To save 1,500 jobs at the time, teachers accepted concessions, including the delay of a 7 percent raise that would have been paid throughout the 2012-13 school year and the extension of five annual furlough days for a third and fourth year.

In exchange, San Diego Unified promised to use 57 percent of all additional money it receives from the state to begin paying the raises and restoring furlough days. The district expects to have enough funds to give teachers a raise of up to 2 percent in July and cancel up to two of the furlough days. About 4.5 percent of the additional state funds would go toward a previously agreed-upon raise for principals.